DALLAS — If the Mavericks’ on-again, off-again deal for Shawn Marion was reduced to a timeline, it’d take a week to untangle it.

In the beginning, there were only two teams involved before it built to three, then four and shrank back to three, only to mushroom to four again. I think. Frankly, I lost count. Following the deal was like tracking a hurricane. If it’d gone any longer, David Stern would have needed map pins to sort it all out.
This was one of those trades where, before you signed off, you had to ask yourself:
Now what did we get?
Answer: The Mavs got better. Not as good as the Lakers or Nuggets or maybe the Spurs. But better, and that’s a good place to start.
Critics contend the Mavs aren’t getting younger, and they’re right. This is not a team you can grow old with. It’s already old. Jason Kidd probably has press clippings older than Roddy Beaubois.
Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson simply skipped a few steps in the rebuilding process, which isn’t exactly unprecedented. Or unwarranted, for that matter.
Maybe you remember how Danny Ainge suddenly went gray a couple of years ago. The Celtics won an NBA title as a result. Now, no one’s confusing Marion with Kevin Garnett, but the principle is the same, nonetheless.
Unlike the NFL and Major League Baseball, where clubs must build from within and add pieces as needed to put them over the top, the NBA is an instant makeover kind of league. As Ainge showed with the Celtics, age isn’t always a negative.
And as Cuban hopes to prove, not every piece you add has to be a Hall of Famer, either.
The Mavericks already had a couple of those in Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki. They simply need better help to fill in around them, and fast. The window, as they say, is closing on both. In fact, Kidd will need a pretty good nudge just to squeeze through.
The additions of Marion and Marcin Gortat should help Kidd’s cause immensely.
The jury is still out on Gortat, but the guilty verdict on Erick Dampier came in long ago. I once asked Del Harris if the Mavs had changed their offensive approach with respect to Dampier, a very large man who seemed to be disappearing before our very eyes. Harris responded with the kind of winding, philosophical reply that, God bless him, he was wont to make.
Finally, I said, “So y’all just stopped throwing the ball to him?”
“Right,” he said.
Last season, Kidd squeezed more offense from Dampier than anyone could have hoped. Unfortunately, slow-moving, big-bodied centers, particularly those with bad hands, are a vanishing breed. Once Shaq goes, his next stop should be the Smithsonian.
A basketball culture primer: Any great passing point guard also benefits from a team that runs well. Kidd won’t break down a defense on his own. But he’ll benefit from more moving parts around him. Consider Steve Nash, who went from being a very good point guard in Dallas to a two-time MVP in Phoenix, where all his athletic finishers made for easier assists.
One of those finishers was Marion. True, he no longer plays the game at the same level. But he’ll inject life into a stand-around kind of lineup. He also provides Rick Carlisle some flexibility, sliding to power forward when the Mavs want to go small.
Question: Can Josh Howard really make the transition to off-guard?
Answer: He’s no Marques Haynes with a basketball, that’s for sure. But it could be a moot point. Even off the bench, Jason Terry will still get most of the minutes at the two-guard. Howard would then move back to his natural position. Or on nights when he’s drifting, he might find himself on the bench, with Marion at the three.
At least it gives the Mavs some viable options. As for the age of the team, quit worrying so much. You’re not getting any younger, either.